Mail.com Reads Your Mail Out Loud

By Geoff Duncan Published August 22, 2006

For years, Web-based email services have been trying to match the flexibility and feature sets of dedicate email applications, rather than trying to explore new and innovative services. (Well, other than integrating ads in your messages.). Today, Web-based email service Mail.com today unveiled Audio Webmail, a new beta feature which enables users to have their message read aloud to them in over 11 languages, directly within a Web browser without installing additional software. The service is available for free to all Mail.com users on the company’s beta site.

Audio Webmail currently supports U.S. and U.K. English, German, Italian, French, Japanese, Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Portuguese, and Dutch, and plans to add support for additional languages in the future. Audio Webmail has been developed in conjunction with mammoth email hosting/processing service Outblaze and ReadSpeaker, a leading developer of text-to-speech and speech synthesis technology explicitly intended for use over the Internet.

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Mail.com spokesperson Jo-Anne Timothy said in a statement: “Audio Webmail is appealing because it allows users to have email read to them while focusing on something else. Additionally, the convenient ‘podmail’ capability allows you to catch up on the day’s emails while exercising, commuting, or doing any other activity that requires you to be away from your computer.”

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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